Apricot Sky
by Coco-Minu
Summary: The sky is as endless as it is beautiful, and it is forever streaked with tangerine dreams. IrukaxTemari, challenge drabbles.
1. Yearning for the Sun

Summary: _The sky is as endless as it is beautiful, and it is forever streaked with tangerine dreams._

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Note: For the Iruka x Temari challenge, on the Naruto Pairings Challenge forum moderated by fauxPROJECT. Also for Demonic Angel Clone, to celebrate the day of her birth, although late.

**Theme: Yearning for the Sun.**

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**Apricot Sky**

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_**Yearning for the Sun**_

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Iruka had never seen such a beautiful day.

Children had bright red cheeks, sun kissed to raw perfection and were ignoring their scraped knees. His hands were nearly peeling and sore from the impossible strain of the heat, his scar was becoming even pinker against his already darkly tanned skin and although most people could be comforted by the summer sun like those he was teaching, he felt that gathering any form of joy from the glorious weather would be futile. So far in the sequence of his life events, the most beautiful days had been the most disastrous.

The day he was orphaned, the sun shone high in the sky, beating down on his skin. It had only made the cut more painful when he was in hospital the next week, barely alive, but clinging to something, anything that he could find to keep him sane at the time. The day he met Uzumaki Naruto, the glorious blue sky had held the yellow sun high up, disregarding the later events of that day. On that day, the young blonde ball of joy (or whatever it was, hyperactivity instead perhaps) the boy had succeeded in killing two class pets, setting fire to one of the desks, and getting involved in a fight with an equally as spunky brunette, who he would later find out was none other than Inuzuka Kiba. He had never had a more stressful day.

He was soon snapped out of his train of thought, however. A girl was storming through the children, one of who was emitting a large wail, and steadily continuing without (it seemed) the slightest care. A large steel fan was in her hand, and she was dragging it along behind her in the dirt, tearing up the grass and foliage. Not that it seemed to bother her. It even looked as though she were blocking out the screams of the children, her sharp eyes focused on the academy door with intense anger. If Iruka were more inclined to not protecting the weak, and was unable to defend his young charges, he knew that day would probably go perfectly. But already, he could sense it. This girl was going to be the thing that made this day ugly.

"What do you think you're doing?" He asked her as she walked past, almost wishing he had not when she turned to look at him. Her angry look became fixated on him, clearly searching his features. Slit eyes slid over his scar, clearly noticing that it was an old mark. She laughed.

"A teacher, you haven't seen the world. It's best they learn now." Her quick retort came. He stiffened in immediate indignation. Who did she think she was? First passing judgment on him for his job, and then telling him that his methods were incorrect? She was really a piece of work. Despite all the havoc and mayhem she had created so easily, she thought it fine to say a thing about how to treat others. He never particularly liked the method she seemed to champion, either. Cruelty was never somthing he enjoyed.

"You didn't answer my question." He replied dryly, licking his parched lips. Strange, how the sun could change from something he liked to something he instantly loathed in an instant. She chuckled, a noise that would have been a pleasant if she had not already made him dislike her due to the utter chaos she had created. She could get him if she wanted. She would make him vulnerable, expose him to everything she knew and although she was so young she clearly seemed to think that she was much more intelligent than he was. She could exploit him easily. He could tell that from a glance.

"Finding someone to destroy." She beamed. New assessment: she was not just an intelligent, clearly bloodthirsty and cruel person, she was insane. She was actually insane. Or agitated. One of the two. She looked full of rage and anger, and if taking it out on someone else was the best thing she could do, then she would damn well do it. Right then, it looked as though his students had been the first victims. Brilliant.

"You need to do something about that attitude. Their parents won't like it if I tell them you came through here acting like that. Some are very gifted shinobi." He muttered. He knew the she could tell straight away that he was unamused by her method of reliving stress. Even so, she did not seem slightly fazed by this. Instead, she glanced at the empty seat next to him on the plain wooden bench, then sat down.

"You're not very scary, you know." She noted, then in an instant, leaned forward and crashed her lips on top of his. It was a messy, completely lacking care but full of passion and despite the fact this girl had just created enough chaos for him to get a large amount of paperwork and complaints from parents, somehow he found himself unable to care in the slightest about it. He raised his hand to cling to her, but in an instant she pulled away, a wicked smirk on her face.

"One man down." She stated, before grabbing the huge weapon and running as fast as she could towards the building she had originally been heading to, leaving him sitting and staring at her back. He might start to like the hot weather, these beautiful days.

He might even start to yearn for the sun.

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Reviews are loved. :)


	2. Water and Sand

Summary: _The sky is as endless as it is beautiful, and it is forever streaked with tangerine dreams._

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Note: For the Iruka x Temari challenge, on the Naruto Pairings Challenge forum moderated by fauxPROJECT.

**Theme: Water and Sand.**

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**Apricot Sky**

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**_Water and Sand_**

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Different instinct.

It was the reason they were nothing alike. Iruka was calm, with a silver tongue. His voice was soothing like the sound of waves crashing against one another. He was one whose mere presence was able to bring hope in the most thunderous of storms to those in danger. He was sweet, but not saccharine, and his actions were not planned or thought out but they reflected this. He was patient, a trait that proved useful when dealing with young children. His methods were by-the-book, planned, careful. He did not take unnecessary risks, and he was not anything special to anyone who happened to pass by him.

Temari, on the other hand, was fierce. She was crude, rarely put thought into what she said and did not really care if it upset anyone either way. Her voice was cold, and often rasping from lack of moisture, dry like the desert she resided in. Rather than calming storms, she created them in fits of rage to spite others. She was anything but sweet, often taking pleasure in the pain of those who got too close to her when she harmed them in even the slightest way. She possessed no patience, no politeness unless she saw the need for it, and she acted in an instant, not thinking about her actions or their future consequences. She wasn't particularly pretty, nor was she at all ugly, but she was strong and anybody could recognise that at a glance from her sturdy hands and fairly bad posture, always ready to attack, however ungracefully.

Then he slipped on a kiss, banged his head and became concussed before tumbling into some sort of disconcerting dream she had created in an instant. All she had done was part his lips, pressure them with her own tinted pink ones ever so slightly, and he was gone. His knees were weak, and he had fallen without even really knowing until she said to him that he was a ridiculous fool who she would never understand or ever had the intention to try to. To put it bluntly, as Temari often did, she did not care for him in the slightest.

"I've fallen into love, all because your kiss tripped me up." Iruka whispered in her ear as he entered the bar. Not to drink, but to find her. She had other ideas, avoiding his grasping fingers and his words. She saw him coming, and she did not need anything he could offer. Instead, on hearing him, she knew she had been torn from the freedom of her desert, the sea keeping her stuck in one place and settled. Chained. Tied down. Something she could not stand to be. So before leaving, she pulled him just close enough before moving away and masterfully bringing her foot crashing into one of his ankles, sending him tumbling into the floor.

"No, I did nothing wrong. We are nothing." She replied with a complacent tone, not really seeming to be bothered by the fact that she had just humiliated him or the fact that people were staring at them, many of them esteemed higher-ups of both of them. She was dangling what he wanted before him, but just out of his grasp. Showing him everything he wanted, but not giving him it although it was so easy for her to. The thing was, although she was a complete and utter walking disaster, that was what made her so easy to care about.

But exactly one hour, ten minutes and seventeen seconds later she walked out of another bar he just so happened to end up outside of because it was close to his apartment (not because he refused to give up and had followed her, or anything) and instinct said otherwise. Water and sand were never meant to go together, but alcohol fueled her system and although he had never taken advantage of a woman he wanted her and it seemed that she wanted him just as much. But after tangled bedsheets stained with sweat was all that remained the next morning, he almost felt sick. He had never been this changed by one person. She had just came and upturned everything, and made him so different. So unlike himself. Running on pure, bestial instinct. So it happened that he found himself able to say it, seemingly much to her amusement.

"I don't love you."

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This one was slightly ambiguous, and the theme sort of worked in but was not direct. Maybe I need to concentrate more on the theme once I have my ideas figured out, and need to plan more based on them.

Reviews are loved. :)


	3. Slap Shake Slip

Summary: _The sky is as endless as it is beautiful, and it is forever streaked with tangerine dreams._

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Note: For the Iruka x Temari challenge, on the Naruto Pairings Challenge forum moderated by fauxPROJECT.

**Theme: Slap. Shake. Slip.**

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**Apricot Sky**

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**_Slap. Shake. Slip._**

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_Slap._

Two pairs of feet hit the wooden floor, the impossibly loud sound they were creating continuing as they weaved their bodies around one another at a speed so fast their limbs would become entangled if they stopped for even a few seconds just to breathe. Their eyes met every few seconds, both taking each other in, noting the things they both repeated in order to avoid the meeting of their skin. She bent back without snapping, her legs suddenly kicking upwards. She stole his wind painfully, and he let out a harsh gasp as his feet fell backwards into a soft stepping rhythm as he tried to keep up with the thing they were doing. This strange beat keeping, somewhat resembling a dance. Then her fingers flipped sideways, smacking him around the face harshly. She always did get the first hits. He smiled at her brightly, rolling back ungracefully unto his feet and then projecting himself upwards without ease.

_Shake._

His hands closed around her arms, shoving her backwards roughly. She slipped the metal fan from her back upwards, digging it into the flimsy wall. It cracked under her strength and the cold metal, the plaster dust coating them both. Weapon stuck in place, it became disregarded. She roared, brutally preparing herself to be launched at him. He gently edged out of the way, and she missed him by mere millimeters, tumbling to the floor haphazardly with a small squeak.

_Slip._

His legs buckled beneath him, and he slid next to her with a small grin. She hissed as he grabbed her hand, glaring at him spitefully. Strange, she didn't pull away. Instead, she did quite the opposite. Her mangled fingers entwined with his tightly, like she couldn't bear to let him go. Cautiously, he pressed his lips on her burning red right cheek, his forehead touching the sweaty side of hers.

"This is how you react when I tell you I love you?"

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Temari seems like the sort of person to over react in this event, be it in the way of the previous drabble or the way in this one where I gave her slightly more emotion than I normally do. I do love 'Temari the warrior' and 'pregnant Temari', but this Temari is just a bit behind them.

Reviews are loved. :)


	4. Love Handles

Summary: _The sky is as endless as it is beautiful, and it is forever streaked with tangerine dreams._

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Note: For the Iruka x Temari challenge, on the Naruto Pairings Challenge forum moderated by fauxPROJECT.

**Theme: Love Handles.**

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**Apricot Sky**

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**_Love Handles_**

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Temari knew from day one.

She had (undeniably, irrevocably, unconditionally) fallen in love with possibly the stupidest male on the planet besides Naruto. Except, well, Naruto had more redeeming qualities, to be (perfectly) brutally honest. Naruto had a winning way with words, a bright smile and wasn't in the least pathetically weak. In the case of his teacher; Iruka was too soft spoken for his own good, his smile was gormless and revealed so little that she hated it when she realised it was so happy, and the only techniques he knew were by-the-book and outdone easily by anyone with flair or even some ounce of common sense. Yet, for all the faults she felt existed in him and she knew she could list easily, she could never find the gall to complain about even one of them. They were, essentially, what made him what he was, which she believed to be a emotional lump of rubbish, to tell the truth.

"So, why do you love me?" He asked one night, playing with her four loosening ponytails. She slapped his hands away harshly, ignoring the fact he could not see her face and scowling to herself in a ugly manner. He shouldn't have been there, really. But she hadn't been able to resist giving him the number of her hotel room, just like she hadn't been able to resist removing his innocent look for herself. That had been six months ago, and it had since become a routine.

"Who says I love you?" She retorted stubbornly. She didn't like him, or understand him. She knew more of pottery and dolls, makeup and embroidery than she knew of him. That fact alone was beginning to get to her. But two things she did know was that he was always unnecessarily truthful, and that somehow in his own odd way he always managed to hit the nail on the head without her giving away anything whatsoever.

"I'll tell you why I love you, then." He replied, polite and unfazed by her spiteful attitude. A persistent little bugger, wasn't he? She mulled over dark thoughts as he began playing with her hair again gently, not really having the energy (or the heart) to snap at him again.

"Go ahead." She muttered, staring at the blank cream walls in front of her. What did she care about what he thought about her? Probably, she knew, a whole damn lot. Not that she would tell him that. His ego had already been inflated enough, not by her nonexistent words of praise, but by her lack of argument as to why.

"You're beautiful, and you always will be. Even in twenty years with babies babies, even when you have love handles, and even when you get old. When you're sick, or grey haired, or anything. To me, nothing will change." He told her quietly, finally releasing her hair from the ties that held it up. Temari never knew herself to be an emotional person, but she recognised what was happening. A lump was building in her throat, her lips were quivering and her eyes stung. She had always been the older sister. The callous sand woman. The powerful fighter. The terrifying bone-breaker. The wind wielder. The intelligent strategist. The ugly. Never, not once, could she ever remember being called beautiful. Her voice broke even as she tried to be sarcastic, tears suddenly fighting to break free after being trapped for so long all at once in a massive rush. She bit her lip as she tried to salvage whatever dignity she had left.

"Pregnant, fat and old? You find that attractive?"

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Because Temari is very pretty, even with her odd look. Yet Iruka to me would be a hopeless romantic, and find her more beautiful than anything. Because that, my friends, is just the way Iruka is. On another note, I need to apologise to the challenge giver Demonic Angel Clone. I got the first word of the previous theme wrong, so the drabble now seems sort of irrelevant. Silly of me. Very silly.

Reviews are loved. :)


	5. At the Bottom of this Bottle

Summary: _The sky is as endless as it is beautiful, and it is forever streaked with tangerine dreams._

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Note: For the Iruka x Temari challenge, on the Naruto Pairings Challenge forum moderated by fauxPROJECT.

**Theme: "...At the Bottom of this Bottle..."**

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**Apricot Sky**

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**_"...At the Bottom of this Bottle..."_**

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"At the bottom of this bottle, there are the right words."

Iruka glanced hazily at the pen in his hand. Simplicity dictated that he did not know what to write. He barely remembered the girl. He knew that she had been fifteen, had a strange hairstyle and that she was a genin when he first met her. She deserved a higher rank, he knew that too. Taking on the class beneath his was not an easy job, and neither was teaching. He was also pretty sure that she had made at least three kids run out of the class crying for various reasons. Her methods had been fairly unorthodox. She was interesting in her own way, if slightly disturbing at times. Oh yes, and there were a few rumours about her and some examiner.

He wasn't very good at lying. His methods were by the book, and sure nearly every guide said that as a shinobi he should be a good liar just in case a situation involving torture could not be avoided. But he had never taken to it. Lying was an art. Some of his students had perfected it in the past, so he couldn't say that it had ever harmed anybody. But it was getting rather frustrating right then. He wanted to tell her that he was amazing, too. That he was one of the best in Konoha at something or other. That he'd taken part in daring missions, met Lords and taken part in ancient traditional rituals. But he hadn't. From the end of his days as a genin, he had never once done any particularly strenuous missions. He only took C ranks and below, being a teacher. He didn't want his students to be too traumatised.

"Umino? Is that you?" A woman with familiar hair opened the door. She carried a large fan with purple circles painted on the folds, the metal of it tarnished with age. A small smirk was draped across her face when he looked up, giving her a seemingly wanted reaction.

"Temari?" He questioned blankly, staring at her. She grinned brightly, moving in an instant and snatching up the letter in between her fingertips and lifted it to her eyes. He jumped out of his seat, attempting to tear it from her grip. Instead he caught the back of her black dress as she turned away, laughing to herself about the letter he had begun to write. He hadn't lied, but that was the very thing that made it so funny.

"Honesty isn't always best, but I can give you something to put in there." She smiled. Moving to face him, she grabbed the front of his chunin vest and kissed him before running off cackling. Iruka stared down at his letter, re-reading it.

_Dear Temari, _

_I don't suppose you really remember me. But I remember you. I suppose we have both done some great things since we last met._

He whipped out his pen, writing one more sentence as he whispered to himself once more.

_But by far, the greatest thing I have ever done is kiss you. _

"At the bottom of this bottle, there was the truth."

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I do not really like this one, but the only other idea I had for it brutalised Iruka. Poor darling.

Reviews are loved. :)

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	6. Green

Summary: _The sky is as endless as it is beautiful, and it is forever streaked with tangerine dreams._

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Note: For the Iruka x Temari challenge, on the Naruto Pairings Challenge forum moderated by fauxPROJECT.

**Theme: Green.**

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**Apricot Sky**

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**_Green_**

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Green screams _**go**_!

Green was the colour of right, and it told people to do things, told them never to stop and to go quicker than a flash in a sudden roar of speed. Green was the colour of nature and companies saying they sold environmentally friendly products they had probably chopped down half the trees of mighty forests to create, the colour of large glittering emeralds. Basically, it meant safety to proceed, and therefore when Sabaku no Temari, eighteen years of age and plastered beyond belief noticed the colour of the vest on one Umino Iruka she assumed he was a safe person to take a chance with. Green meant go, after all.

"So, what do you like more? Green or me?" Iruka asked her as she clung to his arm. She knew that he didn't really know her, but at least he was trying. He was interested in what she was saying, barely understandable as it was. Most men didn't even try.

"I don't know you." Temari laughed, flashing him a smile. She noticed he was trying to gently edge her drink away. Oh, so he was that type. The sweet idiot. He should have known that his type never lasted long, not in their business. She didn't want to kill him for it really, but sometimes those things just sort of happened with her. Because growing up with a whackjob redhead and a boy who played with more dolls than you did made you slightly insane, apparently. Or so she guessed, from experience of course. Her hands flipped palm up in an instant, then flung out desperately into the air. Her fingers curled around his throat easily.

"So it's green, then, because I don't matter at all." He said, and her fingers pressed down harder. Pain in the neck can be cause by a muscular problem, a trapped nerve, a slipped disk – or in most cases – the choking someone who deserved it. She'd get away with it. The Kazekage's sister wasn't going to be told off. Nobody ever told her no, or that something was wrong or right like the colour green or when to just _**stop**_ instead of tearing ahead. Her grip slacked, dropped, and her hands slid to her sides suddenly.

"No. You don't. Did you want to?" Temari muttered. All her words were alphabet soup, a giant muddle that didn't fit together. Mess, mess and more ugly mess. She met his eyes blankly, vaguely aware of the fact that her glass had just smashed to pieces on the floor and in this seedy little bar nobody was paying attention. Or maybe, it was just that nobody cared. This man meant nothing to them, and until then, he had meant nothing more to her than a cheap night which she was becoming aware he would not participate in. He wasn't a toy. For once her life, the colour green was telling her to stop instead, and she didn't understand it.

"If it would give you any happiness, then yes." Iruka admitted, not moving his stare. Her jaw slipped slightly, and she had to wonder when he decided to be like this. Caring was a strange thing, in this shinobi wonderland. Instead of following rabbits they followed people in animal masks who were always on time and there were no little girl in innocent colours climbing down holes because if they went anywhere it was into a grave. The Queen of Hearts, the lovely Hokage, even condoned it. She couldn't stop anything. Yet this one person made it different, and she had to wonder if he was secretly the Mad Hatter because nobody else gave a damn.

"I'll choose you then." She told him, wanting to screech honestly after it but stopping herself. Because she'd never met someone like this. Someone with whom green didn't scream _**go go go **_at the top of it's lungs to make her feel alive. She collapsed into him, tears stinging her eyes. Or maybe it was the liquor. Either way, it said the same words Iruka did before he kissed her softly on the forehead. Kind, silly ones she never knew she wanted to hear.

"If I say 'I love you', will it _**stop**_?"

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I can imagine more than anything, Iruka and Temari would make each other feel alive in a strange way with the slowness they would give each other. Maybe that was why this came out so strange. Maybe, slightly, possibly.

Reviews are loved. :)


	7. Disorderly Conduct

Summary: _The sky is as endless as it is beautiful, and it is forever streaked with tangerine dreams._

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Note: For the Iruka x Temari challenge, on the Naruto Pairings Challenge forum moderated by fauxPROJECT.

**Theme: Disorderly Conduct.**

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**Apricot Sky**

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**_Disorderly Conduct_**

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It was when Temari threw her tea over him.

"I refuse to accept that mission, Umino." She told him coldly, not even seeming to be bothered that a man was on her doorstep and sodden due to her actions. Clearly, she did not quite understand. She wasn't allowed a choice in the matter. She was a diplomat and above that a shinobi, and although it was cruel and wrong to question her morals it had to be done. It was just part of the job, just as her setting fire to various things and using her wind to demolish anything (or anybody) that stood in her way was. But even so, there was something about the way she refused it that triggered something in the back of his mind.

"It isn't optional." He told her, frowning. His ponytail was sticky. She was furious. Nothing about the situation was helping in the slightest. Especially the fact that he was able to feel the thin tea leaves beginning to slide down his cheek when they should have been residing at the bottom of the china cup in her hand. She glared in response.

"I think it is." Temari replied quietly. A sickening feeling began to build in the pit of his stomach. All of a sudden, he felt like they weren't talking about the mission she was refusing to take. She could get a caution for that. It was disorderly conduct. It was wrong. It was a crime, according to the governing body of the council and the law they had set down for his village. He felt like he didn't know what he was thinking about anymore, either. He raised his hands, untying his long hair and combing his fingers though it in the vain hope that it would be slightly tamed. It did not help in the slightest, and instead made his calloused hands as wet as his facial area in general. Idle gestures helped distract him.

"You're too young." He stated, flat-out. She smiled calmly, before hurling the cup at him too. The breakable material smashed into pieces as he smacked his hand outwards, instantly knocking it to his side. She looked at it mournfully; seemingly disturbed by the fact that he second-favourite cup was destroyed. He couldn't say he sympathised.

"To kill children, or for you?" She asked complacently, still looking down at the object which had been smashed into too many pieces for her to count, let alone repair the cup from. He tried to remain calm. He was normally a patient person. But with her, he had begun to count to ten. Then twenty or thirty to one hundred on some days, because she pushed him enough. Everything she did, it seemed, was done in order to somehow bend him to her will. Or to break him in the process of trying, at least.

"I don't know." He answered, and then turned on heel. She didn't try to stop him from leaving. She never had, not so much as once. But he'd do it for her, even if it was only because he didn't want to be alone again. Even if it was only because without her, he felt worse than he did when he was with her. He tried to convince himself that what he realised wasn't true, because nobody noticed those sort of things when their sort-of-whatever she was to him threw cups of tea over them. Things didn't work like that. It couldn't be true. He couldn't say it. Disorder was the name that suited her.

Not love.

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I don't know what it is, but I always make Iruka the lovey-dovey sort. I know he is a nice guy, but I honestly have no clue why I do it. Maybe it's because Temari can be pretty brutal, or something like that, anyway.

Reviews are loved. :)


	8. Satisfaction

Summary: _The sky is as endless as it is beautiful, and it is forever streaked with tangerine dreams._

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Note: For the Iruka x Temari challenge, on the Naruto Pairings Challenge forum moderated by fauxPROJECT.

**Theme: Satisfaction.**

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**Apricot Sky**

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**_Satisfaction_**

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"Are you satisfied?"

Temari raised her eyes to meet his without a qualm. The fury was only what she had expected. The pure fiery rage of his glare was harsh, and his normally soft brown eyes showed only anger. Make that two things – they showed anger, sure – but they also showed sickness. She made him nauseous, with all that she had done and all that she would continue to do. But she couldn't stop. Not then. She was in over her head, and there was no turning back.

Around her were ruins. Rubble and broken planks of wood strewn around, a remainder of what might have once existed. The cheerful sun was beating down on them both, almost mocking the debris and the torment that had been felt once. Even so, those upsets from long ago could always resurface. They would claw their way out of the hearts of men with bloody hands and chesty gargles that cried out in dismay. They had done nothing to deserve pain or hurt.

"Konoha wasn't." Temari answered. The fists of the hollow shell standing in front of her curled into tight balls, his knuckles whitening from the strain of his strength. If he wasn't careful, they'd pop out from the thinner skin. Not that he seemed to notice. When she last saw him, she thought he would turn up dead or worse. She saw that he had opted for the second choice, seeing him like that. He wasn't Iruka anymore. He died along with his 'peaceful' country that created wars and spread suffering as though it were a wildfire.

"We saved you, traitor. Our friends died for your country. Is that not enough?" Iruka shouted. His eyes were wild, and she briefly wondered how he had survived for so long. There were great water supplies left, along with berries and animals for food, but necessary things weren't always the most important. His sanity had clearly deserted him a long time ago.

"I lived for you." Temari snapped bitterly, her calmness beginning to fade. He was not the only one to feel the effects of war. He was not the only one in pain. Yet he was preaching to her about his country, a place he had called home once, and expected her to care. Men always spoke of killing for your country, of saving it and glory. But he never had. However, this war seemed personal to him. Nothing in war was personal. You didn't think about what the last person you killed had waiting at home. Children, sick parents, friends; they didn't matter. There was no room for humanity or any form of love.

"I loved you." He replied coldly. Temari knew he was a liar to use the past tense. Despite his grief and everything that came along with that dreaded emotion, there was still something there. A flicker in his eyes, the long-distant spark that recognised things from long ago. The way she had kept her hair slightly longer so that the ends curled around the nape of her neck, the belt around her waist tied differently, the use of less crudeness. They had all been things he had wanted, and he had them. She knew he still did.

"Are you satisfied?" He repeated, the words sounding forced. He must have known what she was thinking. He was probably insane long ago, but she had to wonder if insane people knew that they were mentally challenged or not. The likelihood was that they didn't. Because behind his hurt, the glimmer still remained. The soft brown under the dark glare, the fine combed hair under the knotted mess of a ponytail, the gentle touch she was sure would still exist if he reached out and touched her with his cut hands. But that wouldn't happen. She heard her own voice breaking as she replied.

"No."

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You are probably wondering why in the future Konoha and the Sand would go to war. I have a few ideas, but be imaginative. It is more fun. All this and still no 'pregnant Temari.' Ah well, I still have a bit to go.

Reviews are loved. :)


	9. Team Ten

Summary: _The sky is as endless as it is beautiful, and it is forever streaked with tangerine dreams._

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Note: For the Iruka x Temari challenge, on the Naruto Pairings Challenge forum moderated by fauxPROJECT.

**Theme: Team Ten.**

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**Apricot Sky**

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**_Team Ten_**

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Temari rarely accepted defeat.

But there was Team Ten; Chouji, Shikamaru, Ino and that single cell was one thing she had lost to. Chouji, because of his kindness and the way he always offered a smile to anybody without any strings attached. Ino, because of her loving grins and the way she only had to turn her head to win the hearts of all those around her. Shikamaru, because of his intelligence and the way he would make the effort even for things he didn't want to. The way she lost to them? They all broke her heart.

Chouji did it with grace. It was something she had not expected someone of his size to be able to do, but she hadn't noticed it until it had already happened. He took her dining at the best restaurants around and placed his favour in large gestures like gentle displays of affection in public such as guiding her using her shoulder with the softest of touches. It was only when he placed a chaste kiss on her cheek after telling her she was more of a friend that the gestures made her cry. She'd never even known she cared. So, she was defeated a first time. She thought it'd be the last.

Then, Ino did it with beauty. She was a person impossible to obtain, harder to capture than any other thing that the wind user had ever come across. Her soft tinkling laughs were full of charm and wonder, and she had a spirit that would never cease to amaze her. She stood for all that others would not, cared for those that nobody else would love. That was where Temari came in. Ino gave her flowers and gazes as blue as the sky. She never said it, but Temari was sure she loved her, and it was only then that she felt the soft rejection must have given to all the rest of the people around her. She could be yours, but you could never touch. A second defeat. She told herself two was nothing.

Shikamaru did it with words. He was just a guide, a familiar face. Barely even a friend, just somebody intelligent who she could talk to when she felt she could not face other things. Sometimes, she'd see the darkness of his eyes and wish she could take it away. He'd done things he'd never counted on. Being brilliant had its price. He was not graceful and caring, nor was he beautiful and unobtainable. But he was a leader, he was quick and rough. She didn't even need to say it, he knew it was coming. He just nodded passively, told her he didn't think it was like that and moved on with his life. She doubted he ever looked back and regretted it. It was then she decided that she could be defeated, but she would never learn to accept it. For the bitter pain it left after heartbreak shouldn't have been in a world like theirs. It was worse than cuts or smashed bones, than a slow poision-enduced death even. Why endure more pain than you had to every day, without fail? Then Iruka came along.

He had textbook-taught grace, using noticeable attacks from the academy. It made him predictable, and it made him kind. Never striving to be a better fighter or elite, he never had to take the harder missions and so was never offered them. He never had the opportunity to see the murky side of their life, and so he was kind. She supposed he was beautiful, in his own lopsided way. The scar across his nose ran deep, and the pinkness of it when under the sun was fleshy and raw despite the wound being decades old. It was a personal quirk of his, that one flaw making him interesting. He was unobtainable, but in his own aloof way as he never would know what the word meant and probably didn't even realise he was. He used kind, caring words, having dealt with children all day and had rough edges formed from things she was dying to ask him. He was Team Ten all over again.

"I love you." He said, before she could. She didn't have to accept a defeat that time. He was willing to take the risk of it for her, and instead of replying she simply kissed him for it. Because she hadn't been defeated, and so she would never have to learn acceptance. It was then she gave up accepting defeat altogether.

Because she tasted victory.

* * *

Haha, yes. I did make Temari have a bisexual tendency in this. Oh well. It is Team Ten, and I love them more than most things.

Reviews are loved. :)


	10. Give Up

Summary: _The sky is as endless as it is beautiful, and it is forever streaked with tangerine dreams._

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Note: For the Iruka x Temari challenge, on the Naruto Pairings Challenge forum moderated by fauxPROJECT.

**Theme: Give Up.**

* * *

**Apricot Sky**

* * *

**_Give Up_**

* * *

She is breaking.

Every breath she draws in rattling and cagey, and he is drawn in by her cold staring eyes and each heartbreaking smile she likes to think shows that things are ok. Because she is Temari, she is strong – and she never give up, never loses – and for a brief moment he wants to believe her. He memorises the way that it feels. This doesn't make any sense at all, and it's in his jarred mind and his bloodshot eyes and everything about this moment.

"If I say your smile is all that matters, will you stay?" He asks her. It's a ridiculous, childish question and he knows she can't make promises looking like she does. But he asks anyway. Because she's there - _she's bent and crooked and smiling_ – and she's the best mistake he's ever made. He can taste the salt water dripping down his face, smell the metallic scent of blood in the air and feel the bones in her shattered fingers rearrange under his touch. She makes his lungs work again every time she grins, and it's not fair that he can't do the same. Nothing ever fair with her, and he hates it.

"You know I can't answer that." It is matter of fact, plain, truthful and it hits him like having a freezing bucket of water poured over his head. Because he can see her lips, still curved and cheerful but she's dying. He doesn't know what to do about it. He's always supposed to do basic medical things in these situations, but his mind is running away and it's all wrong when he kisses her because it won't save her life like breathing air into her would.

"If I say I love you?" He's desperate, and he'll do anything – as long as she stays – because he does. She's callous and wicked, she speaks harshly and never regrets it, but he couldn't complain about it. He sees her in the worst moments, and this ranks among them because it shows despite all she says she's just human like the rest of them. Just like all humans, in the end, she breaks. But he doesn't want to know this. She's something else. She's everything. She has to be, she has to be – because she's Temari, for crying out loud – and he loves her. We always want to believe that the people we love are unbreakable. Always. This is a certain fact installed in his mind over years, but he still cannot accept it.

"I wouldn't say the same." She whispered. But he knows it's a lie. She's just thinking this way, it'll hurt less. He can see it in every inch of her pain-contorted face. Pushing him far away, because she's scared. Because she can't turn to him when she's doing this, skipping out on everything they could have. She can't do that to anyone. But the cruel words linger on his lips anyway, and they slip out before he can stop them.

"If I say give up?" He questions. Her still warm skin was soft under his touch, and he wanted to believe she wouldn't leave him. But she doesn't answer. So he sits, removes his hand, and looks down at every piece of her shattered remains. Her crushed bones, her fan that she always held dear shredded to pieces on the ground and her still permanent smile. He decides then he can't stand it, and turns the edges of her lips downwards. A plain expression given to a plain person, and nobody would ever know about them.

They wouldn't see him break too.

* * *

Depressing stuff, but everything else I could think of for 'Give Up' was even worse than this. Eck. I need some sort of stick that hits mental blocks, really. It would help a lot.

Reviews are loved. :)


	11. The Tide is High

Summary: The sky is as endless as it is beautiful, and it is forever streaked with tangerine dreams.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Note: For the IrukaxTemari challenge, on the Naruto Pairings Challenge forum moderated by fauxPROJECT.

Theme: **The Tide is High.**

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**Apricot Sky**

* * *

**_The Tide is High_**

* * *

Words did not last forever.

Temari dreamed once that if she carved them into the earth hard enough they'd remain there forever. The mud would cake underneath her fingernails and stain them, but then as soon as she took a bath any evidence would be washed away. Then the rain would come, and the words would be waterlogged and gone before she could do anything about it. So instead she wondered about scratching them into stars, forcing them into the bark of trees, writing them where they would stay without fear of being forgotten. Some things were worth preserving, worth remembering, worth the time it took to make them stay where they belonged.

Iruka could never know that. Instead he took her to the beach, dug his words into the sand. Ignored it when the salty sea water washed away the tiny grains under his nails, laughed when he lost the trace of such powerful things. His expression of his love for her remained for a while, and that night the tide came in. Whatever there was left of them was gone. His feelings from that day, his smile, everything. Without the words, she felt they were nothing but insignificant accompaniments.

"It didn't last." She mourned quietly, digging her toes under the wet sand and wishing desperately that it had. Spoken things could be forgotten, letters could be lost and his show of love was gone just as quickly as it had appeared. Beside her, Iruka laughed childishly before pulling one of her messy pigtails affectionately. The small gestures wouldn't last either, she thought drearily. Eventually, humans and their selfish desires could even lead to the destruction of all there was. These halcyon dreams weren't ever like her, anyway. She'd never dreamed before the moment she met him, and things lasting forever just didn't happen. He'd just made her forget, she thought dully. There was no point to dreams, that was why they were called such a name. They were made to be impossible to achieve.

"Everything dies in the end. You just need to make the most of it." He told her softly. She blinked. Some creatures had a life span of only a day or a week. But in that time they were not forgotten. They lived, passing on their lives to others, making others remember them through the littlest things. They made the most of what they had in the tiniest amount of time in their seemingly insignificant lives. Thousands, millions, billions of creatures all lived. Yet she had failed to see that. In all those lives, surely someone remembered something that another had said to them - even in the most fleeting moment – and the memory of another continued. Nobody was forgotten. Nobody was alone. Nobody did not deserve to dream.

So the next evening just before the tide came in, she carved her words into the sand over and over. _I need you_, _I love you_, _I'll never forget _and when they were washed away she just repeated the process and left them until the next morning. The sky is as endless as it is beautiful, and it is forever streaked with tangerine dreams. That was her new theology. Even if memories didn't last forever and legends died out in time, the sky was endless. She would achieve that in life, the golden moment at the end of her dream when she achieved what she wanted. So she would carry on dreaming. She would scratch her name into stars, into the bark of trees or anything as long as she could. She'd write that she loved him over and over. No matter how many times the tide washed them away. Because nothing lasted forever.

But forever was worth trying for, with him.

* * *

This has been a lot more cheerful than most in this collection. Because some things are just worth it.

Reviews are loved. :)


	12. Eyelash Wishes

Summary: _The sky is as endless as it is beautiful, and it is forever streaked with tangerine dreams._

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Note: For the IrukaxTemari challenge, on the Naruto Pairings Challenge forum moderated by fauxPROJECT.

Theme: **Eyelash Wishes.**

* * *

**Apricot Sky**

* * *

**_Eyelash Wishes_**

* * *

Temari smiled at every bad thing about him.

"You're naïve, but I like that, you know?" She said. He never believed naivety was a good thing until she told him that – he forced children to go on and grow up, teaching them not to be teachers and to _die for their country_ - and so such things were out of the question. She was the teenager telling the man nearly twice her age about how young he was, not the other way around. But when her hands messed with the ends of his hair just like that, he was not about to argue.

"You taste like sea salt." He told her, the fifth time she played with his hair. She laughed, asked him how he would know. She hadn't kissed him. But she was like kerosene when he was the flame, and she was branded into his mind. He didn't need to taste her to know, he just did. He liked to believe he was being honest then, because naïve people usually were honest and she said she liked that, but if anyone really knew him they'd see that underneath his usual persona he wasn't ever quite sure if he was as naïve as she wanted him to be.

"Then you clearly don't know me at all." She cackled, almost-coldly, and for the first time he felt something in her slipping away all too quickly. He knew she was not permanent. Just standing in to teach while his country was trying to tinker and repair the things it needed. But even knowing that, hearing those words made him feel exceptionally lonely. She saw beneath a school teacher, and at fifteen he wasn't even sure she was alive in the slightest, but something about her meant more than nothing.

"I don't need to know you." He didn't need to know her to see exactly what she was like from the very start. She was plastic reactions and perfectly made to think the way her country wanted to, she didn't need beauty to take him down, and she burned everything along with her if someone tried to take her down. That much was obvious. No, he didn't need to know her, but he loved her. She was what he wasn't, and for that reason she broke him from the beginning like he always knew she would. Naivety was never a good thing.

"But you love me." She grinned. He didn't even need to say it. She didn't make wishes, and he doubted she ever had. Falling stars came down because they bore such heavy burdens, she'd whisper, pleading on eleven-eleven would make no changes because what different was that time to any other, and things like that just didn't last. He smiles, bites back everything about himself for a moment, and forces himself to reply.

"Your eyelash wishes. Not mine." He grinned. She'd been sharpening pencils at that moment, he could remember, and as soon as he said it she dropped them. The colours all snapped at the top, and they were left dull and blunt. Streaking life with brightness, with her, was too risky. Especially if she didn't really want him. She stooped down to pick them up, and stood back up with a smirk.

"Maybe you're not as naïve as I thought." She had no reason to like him anymore, and he couldn't say he was surprised when he found out that she left the next morning. But every so often he'd think back on her, the way she burned his eyes and how she'd scorch his lips if he'd ever come near to telling her the truth. Naivety was definitely not a good thing. Eyelash wishes were for crooks and beggars, he decided. But when stars fell, when it was eleven-eleven and other insignificant times like that he sometimes wanted to have her back. Just to see if he could get her to believe, too. Not in all those silly things, though. In anything he came out with.

To see if she smiled at her unraveling, like she did at his.

* * *

If you don't say something aloud and mean it, you cannot expect it to be acted upon. You cannot expect anything from it. Nothing at all.

Reviews are loved. :)


	13. The Third Strike

Summary: _The sky is as endless as it is beautiful, and it is forever streaked with tangerine dreams._

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Note: For the IrukaxTemari challenge, on the Naruto Pairings Challenge forum moderated by fauxPROJECT.

Theme: **The Third Strike.**

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**Apricot Sky**

* * *

**_The Third Strike_**

* * *

It is three in the morning.

Temari sits in his apartment and watches the early morning through a condensation covered window, and then lifts bare fingers to draw stick men on the window. One for every one she'd ever met, excluding him. Some people claimed artists always put themselves in their work, but she was no greatly refined practitioner of any sort, so she sees no reason. She thinks maybe this way, they can be unhappy together. Because nobody deserves to be as happy as the lopsided grins she has given everyone else. It takes her a minute to wipe them all out.

"You were right, you know." She whispers to him. He opens his eyes, and wipes the non-existent sleep dust from them. You can't get sleep dust when you don't sleep, she stops herself from saying. Instead her eyes trace the shades of purple under his, as he silently does not ask what about. She decides to answer anyway. She draws three thin lines with her fingernail and admires them as they begin to slide further down into almost nothing.

"I bought this guy home, the other day. He had a really nice voice and a strange smile. He had big black eyes and smelt like paint. He had a rough way of holding me." She is babbling, she knows, but he is listening anyway. He was her third strike. The artist of Team Seven, the one who didn't know where to start or how he shouldn't ask if he could call her his girlfriend's name. Iruka must have known before she said, she tried to convince herself.

"I regret it." She continues, when she feels his body stiffen. He hadn't expected this. She'd done it before, and he'd always said three strikes. She could do whatever she wanted, he had said. He wouldn't care until it got to three and she felt like this didn't mean anything.

"I guess I thought I could be like birds and freedom, flying out and away." She tells him, her voice getting tired. He pulls himself to his knees with the blanket wrapped around his body before engulfing her in it too. He dips his head into the small crook of her shoulder, and smiles into her back.

"You can't escape love." He answers. That night he falls asleep, and she is the one who is awake. She has had three strikes and he has done nothing to stop her, but he's still trying to convince her that he's in love. At four am, she steps out of the bed with bear feet and quietly makes her way down the stairs. Freedom may get her nowhere, but she likes searching the streets for some resemblance of his name that she might like better.

But she still goes back every single time.

* * *

I guess you can call this the sort of love where you find someone, but you try to convince yourself you do not want them. It is the sort of runaway story. Sorry I have no updated in so long, I have been ill and going back to sixth form this week has been absolutely mad.

Reviews are loved. :)


	14. Kiwi

Summary: _The sky is as endless as it is beautiful, and it is forever streaked with tangerine dreams._

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Note: For the IrukaxTemari challenge, on the Naruto Pairings Challenge forum moderated by fauxPROJECT.

Theme: Kiwi.

* * *

**Apricot Sky**

* * *

**_Kiwi_**

* * *

When she finds heart shapes cut into her kiwis, she scratches her nail through it.

"I have a wild heart." She tells Iruka, throwing one to him because she knows it was him. He's the kind of man that does nothing significant, not really, but he still leaves his imprint everywhere. She remembers him when she gets back to Suna every time, and thinks it's somehow sort of funny that his name would make one think he hated sand but he just couldn't leave her alone. He was superimposed in miniscule pictures on every grain, and by the time she shakes it out of her brittle hair at night she has to convince herself it's not his hands she's moving out of instead. But she isn't one for sentiment, or one for sticking around.

"You can't be contained, so I'm never going to try and stop that." He answers, smiling at the kiwi instead of looking at her. Iruka has never asked her to relent, never stepped away or tried to run from her hurricanes and storms; because he knows she isn't a safe bet, he knows she isn't harmless, and though he'd prefer not to be injured more than necessary he thinks for her it's worth it. Seeing her smile is like looking in the face of the apocalypse and thinking how beautiful it is for that fleeting moment it exists. So all the little things, like cutting hearts in kiwis, will just make that little moment more worthwhile.

"Why then?" She looks perplexed. Even in her eyes he can see the tempest, in the round circle of her high apple coloured cheeks he sees a torn orchard, and her burning smile suns and stars igniting and burning everything to the ground. She's wild, too wild, and she can't be stopped but just maybe, no, he knows this: he can keep up with her. He's not running away until he can hear her running after him. He wants to open her heart and see the heavens crash down.

"Because together, we'll be wilder. We'll be impossible, we'll be terrible, and we won't contain each other. We'll still be just like this." He tells her, taking the kiwi and turning around. This is when she begins to see the storm in his eyes, the crackle of lightning striking in his movements that makes her shake, the way that he was small and insignificant but when he detonated it'd be the biggest disaster, a bomb eradicating thousands or something horrible that you just couldn't help be fascinated with.

Next time, she gives him a kiwi back without the heart crushed.

* * *

I am feeling sentimental. This was such a difficult theme, but this is what I think Temari would do to him. She would make him just as mad as her, and it'd be beautiful. Just beautiful.

Reviews are loved. :)


	15. Tale of the Tape

Summary: _The sky is as endless as it is beautiful, and it is forever streaked with tangerine dreams._

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Note: For the IrukaxTemari challenge, on the Naruto Pairings Challenge forum moderated by fauxPROJECT.

Theme: **Tale of the Tape.**

* * *

**Apricot Sky**

* * *

_**Tale of the Tape**_

* * *

"You know, I could love you."

Iruka tells her when she has a round belly, plump and grotesque with his child. She snorts. He is a good man, she thinks, the guy with a soft smile and a way with words. But he does not love her, and herein lay the problem. When he lies his teeth click together nervously, and she doesn't need to tell him that she knows this and that when she is silent it is only for this reason. She smirks and slurps the milkshake he has just bought her before leaning forward and looks his directly in the eyes.

"Wake up, your life isn't a love story. We're not some sad foreign film starring your favourite actress, and no; you can't make it better." She tells him before sitting back and beginning to drink again. It's not going to be pretty in the morning but she doesn't particularly care at this moment in time. It's a free drink, and she's not going to pass it up.

"You can't raise a child by yourself." He answers. She almost chokes on the next gulp. She's the sister of the Kazekage; she's more than capable. He's just a guy who's far too old, too soft, who lives on the bad side of town to keep an eye on those he loves. When she's throwing up at six in the morning, things won't be as beautiful as they are in his discount video tapes.

"I don't see why not." When she left him in his bed she'd broke one of his arms and her hands were blue with cold. He'd been nervous; she'd been screaming the loudest lies ever told about not loving him. Because nothing works out in the end. Nothing's perfect, not even his old films from a decade before she was even born, no matter how much he wants them to be.

"Because it took me five years of my own pathetic feelings and watching those crappy foreign romance films you secretly love to think I got over you, but I doubt I ever did." He tells her. Her face scrunches up, but it's probably not because of his words. It's just that the drinks too cold, she tells herself, when he continues to stare at her. She wanted it to be love, she told herself it was at the time but right now she believes it never got that far. But she lets his little finger curl around hers under the table anyway and chooses the answer that means least.

"It took me twenty two minutes and being pregnant with your kid."

This is when she tips the drink over his head.

* * *

Iruka cannot handle a pregnant Temari, even if she does love him really. End of discussion.

Reviews are loved. :)


	16. Giggles

Summary: _The sky is as endless as it is beautiful, and it is forever streaked with tangerine dreams._

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Note: For the IrukaxTemari challenge, on the Naruto Pairings Challenge forum moderated by fauxPROJECT.

Theme: **Giggles.**

* * *

**Apricot Sky**

* * *

_**Giggles**_

* * *

Sometimes, Temari gets the giggles.

Not the kind that means she finds something funny because she knows she has no sense of humour. The sort of giggles that are morbid and wrong and shouldn't really exist. Like when she and her brothers were little and their cousin lined up sixteen green pills on the countertop because he just couldn't take it anymore.

Once a few years ago, she'd run into Uchiha Sasuke in the sand. He was drunk at midday, with dark circles under his eyes. At first she thought it was beautifully sad, the way he looked so pale and a messed up sort of gorgeous; but when he's coughing and spluttering out handfuls of sand from his mouth and covered in blood and vomit, it's no so pretty. Nobody was around to help him either, when she broke his jaw. All she used to remember was his white hot rage, but now all she sees is a smashed up boy and this is what makes her laugh. It's not the pain, but rather that people are pathetic.

"Why are you so frightened?" Iruka Umino asks her once, when she's playing diplomat and watching children run around the academy he works at like she's really interested. She made a conscious decision the year she almost killed Sasuke to not get too attached to any of her students, anything with limbs and wide eyes that made her feel normal. Anything too harmless looking and filled with rage to not be a lie.

"I'm not frightened." She says almost instantly. If he catches the falter, the quick hitch of breath before her answer; he doesn't say anything about it. She supposes he's a gentleman of sorts, if not the poetic kind she's grown attached to.

When she gets back to Suna she falls asleep on the ground outside her brothers apartment and wakes up choking on dust, smothered with time and consequence; feels bruises on her arms blacker than burnt on ash. Nobody said she'd been worried, but nobody needed to say it. She has had nothing to be scared of her entire life, but she's worried that one day he'll be gone again and she doesn't want him to die before she does.

"When you're scared, I'll laugh for you." Iruka tells her as he covers her eyes when she walks back into Konoha. She can smell burnt flesh and a lack of humanity and thinks that Sasuke has been there recently. She feels tears stinging her eyes, and she refuses to cry.

Iruka laughs.

* * *

Do not ask. Morbid thoughts from this theme? I know. But it would be cliché to think she was giggling over him doing something silly, and men don't giggle. They laugh. Did I mention I hate using the word giggling?

Reviews are loved. :)


	17. The Coldest Story Ever Told

Summary: _The sky is as endless as it is beautiful, and it is forever streaked with tangerine dreams._

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Note: For the IrukaxTemari challenge, on the Naruto Pairings Challenge forum moderated by fauxPROJECT.

Theme: **The Coldest Story Ever Told.**

* * *

**Apricot Sky**

* * *

_**The Coldest Story Ever Told**_

* * *

"You know, that night I went home and took eleven tablets Haruno prescribed."

Temari says conversationally, looking at the cloth covered patch on Iruka's arm that she must know covers his red swirl. Before his mother died she could imagine her telling him that boys with tattoos were bad, to treat girls right, to be a gentleman. But no matter how much parents love their kids it doesn't affect how they turn out.

"You didn't call me, that day." He answers blankly. What does she want him to say? That things are ok, that everything's going to work out when they both know it won't. She didn't call him at three in the morning as usual because she went home and tried to overdose. Part of him thinks it's because she knew she was wrong when she said that there was no way he could overtake her, that he was just a teacher, that he was just a kid playing ninja. He knows the book inside and out, each and every rule. Better than he knows her, in fact. Now, her biggest complaint is kept to herself. That he got too strong; became a tempest like her and that she didn't like his changing because it made him colder even though she was supposed to be the heartless one.

"I didn't want you to be sad." She pauses before she tells him this, like she never really wanted him to know it; just a dusty secret to be locked away and forgotten over time like an old photograph of love. This conversation is irritating her, he can tell; just like the way it irritates him when his shirt rides up and grass scratches his back, but he used to withstand it just for her. It's funny how things can change in eleven months.

"Kind of weird, you didn't mind before." He says. She jolts. Temari has always been carved from muscle and tight lean limbs, the kind of not very pretty beauty but the kind that undeniably means she has something. When she used to have dust streaked on her cheeks he found her pretty, and back then she found him useless. He's got to try to remember to forget her again, because last time his heart was breaking as she said goodbye in the coldest freezing winter voice she could manage.

"You make this sound like the best lie of a love story there ever was." She snorts suddenly, ungraceful in the finer moments as always. He doesn't say _but it was the best lie ever told_, though he knows she catches his moment of sentiment although she doesn't taunt him about it. Her hands suddenly tug on his jacket like before and he jolts away.

"Because it is." He tells her, before leaning down and mashing his lips on hers. Her breath halts for a moment but she doesn't stop him. He's always been the train wreck but this time she can't stop and for once she wants to be part of the collision instead of just looking on with a blank heart and no intention of love whatsoever. This is where she goes wrong. If she had a heart, she'd love him. This she knows. But the only reason she doesn't have one is because he got to it first and took it away.

"Stop loving me." She tells him, a clear warning. She hates blood, she just plain hates it. But it'll stain his clothes after he leaves tonight and it'll take eleven washes of his black shirt to get it out. But she'll dig her nails into a palm until there are thin bleeding lines just because he won't be home safe until she's seen him with her own eyes. It'd only hurt a little. Unlike him leaving again, like last week. Like he would again tomorrow at exactly three in the morning.

"That night, I walked out and left my heart behind."

* * *

Sort of romantic, sort of not. I bet Iruka could do anything if he wanted to, although I reckon he enjoys being a teacher far too much to change his career path. So yes, here is a focus on Iruka. I was given the option of making this chapter link with the song, and if you know all the words to 'Heartless' by Kanye West then you might pick up on small references in the storyline. Imagining Temari as a Dr. Evil made me crack up, because I thought of the one from Austin Powers. Too cool, I know.

Reviews are loved. :)


	18. Bared

Summary: _The sky is as endless as it is beautiful, and it is forever streaked with tangerine dreams._

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Note: For the IrukaxTemari challenge, on the Naruto Pairings Challenge forum moderated by fauxPROJECT.

Theme: **Bared.**

* * *

**Apricot Sky**

* * *

_**Bared**_

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Lately, these winter days, she stays at home.

"These empty days shouldn't exist." She tells her youngest brother, teeth bared with something akin to anger, and he nods although she knows that he doesn't understand; and it doesn't make anything better in the slightest. These empty days shouldn't exist, she says – _like empty boxes or tangible lives hanging on frail string like_ - and he doesn't ever tell her otherwise. In the summer she had learnt to fly, and these cold times she stays at home and pretends her mind is blank. Or at least, she tries to. But these past few weeks, more than ever life doesn't have a sense of equilibrium, and there is no such thing as fairness.

"This feels like waiting a year for a festival, or white day or something ridiculous." Gaara tells her the next week; although he knows she is already certain of this. Temari has never been the sentimental kind. She has fixed his stuffed bear from when he was young whenever it looks just that little bit more tatty, and they both know she has some medical skills even if she never tells him she's been practicing them a bit since Kankuro got hurt; but this is just her keeping secrets that they know anyway; the way it has always been.

"I don't see the point in waiting for it if I have nobody to celebrate it with." She answers snappishly, and turns her back to him. He doesn't have the heart to tell her what they both know; that when the day has passed and nobody walks in, then she'll have to wait all over again. For nothing. Nothing at all. He doesn't tell her that she can celebrate it with her family either, because he knows this isn't the answer she wants. So he bites his tongue and keeps his ugly words stashed behind his teeth for a better time.

"It's next Monday, isn't it?" He asks her, kneeling and pressing his head in between her shoulder blades just like when they were kids before things got messy. She never believed in fairytales or magic, or anything like love because her impeccable intelligence told her it was impossible for such things to exist; and she liked to put whatever this waiting was down to proximity. But the one she's waiting for isn't close, so for the first time in a long time Gaara wraps his arms around his sister in a stiff embrace that feels like asphyxia.

"Hello." Next Monday comes, and there he is standing at the door. It's always summer in Suna, all three hundred and sixty five days of the year but lately it's felt like winter and Gaara leaves as Iruka walks in. He had watched her leave with a sad smile, because she had to walk away; but he had to follow. Everything comes to an end, Temari always told him, just at different rates and paces and it takes time.

But for now she wraps her arms around Iruka's neck anyway.

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I may have slightly danced around the theme and buggered it slightly, but there is a softer side to Temari, of this I am almost certain.

Reviews are loved. :)


	19. Sunshine

Summary: _The sky is as endless as it is beautiful, and it is forever streaked with tangerine dreams._

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Note: For the IrukaxTemari challenge, on the Naruto Pairings Challenge forum moderated by fauxPROJECT.

Theme: **Sunshine.**

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**Apricot Sky**

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_**Sunshine**_

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"Everyone says dreams will come true."

Temari mutters. You can learn to fly, but you can't predict the hunters who will shoot you down without any hesitation – _and practice makes perfect, practice makes perfection and perfection means a lot of people love and hate you _– and it's only when you've been pulled down to reality that you realise that you can spread your wings all you want; it's not going to change anything at all when you crash down to the ground and break half the bones in your body. The irony, she doesn't tell those who never asked, is that she learnt the hard way.

"As long as you don't give up?" Iruka half questions, half answers; but which one it is she's not sure. He's lazily soaking up the sunshine, staring blankly at the sky because it's an idle day. It's the sort of sky Nara would love, with clouds that you could dip in and out of and soar through. Something she knows she'll never manage. Nobody will. You can always throw yourself up in the air, but you'll always end up crashing down after it. There are no soft landings. She tries to prod her companion with her broken fingers, but it's futile. This is something that they both know.

"How did you do that?" He gestures briefly to her broken arm, not really sure if he wants to know really. She wants to answer that it's because she's extinct; because dead animals have just proved that they should never try to spread their wings because they're not the right kind to do something beautiful like flying, she wants to tell him that her heart is miles away and that's why she's not in the right mood for this, that the boy that finally brought her to her knees is a traitor and the only thing she wants to recover from.

"I expected someone to catch me." She answered, not really wanting to go into the details. What he's seeing is her biting her lip until it bleeds, he's seeing her touch her bandaged fingers lightly like she's trying to forget; and he's seeing her look at the clear blue sky like she wants summer to end without the other one that he'll never be. What he's seeing is her not falling for him.

"I would have." He says absent mindedly. His pulse is beating like a runaway cart, smacking against his chest. Her lips curl into a tight smile, like she's trying just that little bit too hard to be happy. She rolls on her side and looks directly into his eyes. She wished it could have been him; because Iruka wrote little post it notes and stuck them to her fridge saying how he brought milk again, and he had time to live; and he knew she wasn't beautiful but that didn't matter to him. All he asked for was her, and she couldn't even give him that.

"But in the end, these things are all just dreams."

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I guess your view on this will be affected by if you think dreams do come true. Personally, I think Disney lies; the originals of all the faitytales they have redone end so horribly. But I like to hope for a happy ending.

Reviews are loved. :)


	20. Last

Summary: _The sky is as endless as it is beautiful, and it is forever streaked with tangerine dreams._

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Note: For the IrukaxTemari challenge, on the Naruto Pairings Challenge forum moderated by fauxPROJECT.

Theme: **Last.**

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**Apricot Sky**

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_**Last**_

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He was just a boy.

Temari's been with twelve before Iruka – _some were beautiful with ocean eyes or words they thought could hold them together or heartbeats like freak accidents_ – and this time she thinks it will end the same. He's a man that acts like a child, with a soft smile and rose coloured sight glued into his eyes; and when the clock hits twelve he doesn't become anything at all. Instead he rolls over, pulling the covers accidentally on purpose with him, and kisses her nose as she opens her eyes because at midnight everything is supposed to go back to normal. But he's made this work, and he's not going to disappear like others have before.

"Do you even know what reality is like, thirteenth?" She asks him between breaths of nicotine as she sits on the windowsill. She doesn't condone smoking, because it isn't beautiful or poetic like he wants her to believe it is most of the time; but sometimes there's nothing else to do when you wake up at midnight and the thirteenth boy is rolled up in your bed covers like it's perfectly acceptable for him to even exist.

"I know you've always had too much of it." He says. His brain is clogged with early morning numbness, and the fuzzy slippers on her feet would make him laugh if he could focus but he's too busy drinking the morning toxicity spilling from her lips. Nothing like almost oxygen to wake you up. Funny thing is, to him everyone looks the same but her. Everyone else can smoke until their lungs go black, but it's only when she does it that he finds it pretty in a strange way.

"The world isn't full of rainbows." She answers, not really wanting to tell him that he's right. He knows anyway. When the burning smoke fills her throat because she does it the wrong way she coughs, and this is when he wakes up properly. Sometimes she glitters in the early morning sun when it gets to five after these silly little conversations she must know by now that he loves, even though he hasn't had a proper night of sleep in over a month since he's been here.

"If you fall in love with me, it will be." He tells her. She snorts, suddenly unladylike. He rolls out of the sheets that are embracing him and goes to her instead. Her warmth was always rare, and always better. He placed his lips on her head. He might be just a boy, but that's ok as long as he's just a boy to her. Number thirteen, the unlucky one she supposed she liked. Then her breath hitches and her cheeks burn feverishly against his already cold skin.

Maybe he'd make them beautiful with such words although she knew it to be wrong, because he was the only one she'd ever loved – _but she's never wanted to love anyone especially not him even though she can't help it _– and it doesn't matter anymore. As long as he stays hers, even if he is just a boy.

"I'm already in love with you, idiot."

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Because they love each other really. The last drabble of **Apricot Sky**, and so the end of my challenge because I refuse to rewrite my oneshot into a drabble until I feel it an absolute necessity. Any feedback on your favourite little drabble would be appreciated, or a general comment on the whole thing. I want to know if this pairing actually worked because it deserves more love, you know. Anyway. Point being, I hope you enjoyed it.

For the last time, reviews are loved. :)


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